Honda Offers Civic WTCC Edition

Honda is big into racing. The Japanese automaker competes in numerous forms of motorsport around the world, from IndyCars to Superbikes, Le Mans prototypes to Baja off-road racing and from Super GT (where it recently debuted the new CR-Z GT) to the World Touring Car Championship. That's where the Japanese team fields a racing version of the new European-spec Civic hatchback, and to celebrate that effort, Honda's Swiss subsidiary has launched the special edition you see here, pictured alongside its inspiration.

The Honda Civic 2.2 i-DTEC WTCC packs a 2.2-liter turbo four with 150 horsepower, a six-speed manual transmission, KW suspension, 17-inch powder-coated OZ Racing Superturismo wheels and, as you can see from these photos, a paint scheme derived from the WTCC car's race livery. The team's star drivers Tiago Monteiro and Gabriele Tarquini - former F1 drivers both - recently sampled the special edition road car at the Slovakia Ring race track during a WTCC test session. Offered exclusively through Honda Switzerland, the special-edition Civic carries a price tag of 31,900 Swiss Francs, equivalent to about $34k in US dollars.